


Ugly Indeed

by zenonaa



Category: Dangan Ronpa
Genre: F/M, Togafuka Week
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-29
Updated: 2014-09-29
Packaged: 2018-02-19 05:47:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2377019
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zenonaa/pseuds/zenonaa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I don’t like repeating myself. I’ll be the judge of whether they’re ugly or not. You saw me without glasses so I should see you without yours.”</p><p>Fukawa doesn't know whether she likes wearing glasses or not.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ugly Indeed

Smooth. Wood. Tabletop. One of a possible three.

Touko Fukawa pressed down her hand and ran her fingers along the grain, fingertips stuttering and squeaking across the surface.

The table wobbled and she lurched into it.

Pain throbbed where the corner of the table had jabbed her in the stomach. She inhaled shakily, straightening up. At least she knew where she was now. Unless the librarian recently moved the table with one leg shorter than the other three to another part of the library, Touko had wandered over to the alcove that had shelves of dictionaries and other reference materials.

But Touko didn’t need a dictionary at that moment. Even if she did, she wouldn’t have been able to read it unless she poked her nose into its spine. Without her glasses, everything not in her immediate area was shrouded in fog.

Whoever stole them must have left by now. Touko couldn’t hear anyone nearby. Then again, she didn’t even hear them creep up on her from behind. They had snatched her glasses from her face before running off, leaving her dazed and squinting more than usual. Much of the past ten minutes was spent stumbling through an obstacle course of books, shelves and air pockets beneath the carpet.

Touko’s foot hit a bookcase. A few books came loose and one landed on her toes, drawing out a squeak from her lips.

“Excuse me?” came a voice.

She stiffened.

The voice came again, louder this time. “Lunch-time finished a few minutes ago.”

Footsteps. Heels. Clomping. A woman. The librarian. She must have got bored of watching Touko scramble around. Perhaps the novelty wore off. Touko added this happening to her growing list of reasons to dislike the librarian. Oh, Touko didn’t need glasses to know how the librarian presented herself. How she blew out telltale puffs of air from her button nose, and wore her hair in a too kempt side ponytail, and how she smiled with thin lips and a long mouth.

“Fukawa-kun, why are you still here?” drawled the librarian. “You’re the only student I know who prefers the library to the playground. Did you lose track of time again?”

Cheeks burning, Touko wrung her hands. “I can’t find my glasses.”

“Ah, so that’s why your face is even more sour than usual. You need to take better care with them. Come on, let’s get you back to class.”

Touko let herself be frogmarched out of the library, down the corridor and into her homeroom. She stepped through the doorway, her arms wrapped around herself, feeling rather than seeing everyone’s eyes. Her class sat as silhouettes at the back of the room, pricking her blurred vision. Any of them could have taken her glasses. They were all the same, with or without her glasses. All wore simpering masks that cracked with laughter when she or a teacher turned away.

“I found her in the library,” the librarian explained. “She lost her glasses again.”

“Again?” Her teacher huffed. “Fukawa-kun, that’s the fourth time this month. You need to keep them on your head, not leave them wherever you want. This isn’t your house. I know you don’t like wearing them and I know you haven’t been here long, but you can’t just take them off.”

Touko sucked in air but didn’t speak until she was sure her tone wouldn’t betray her. No one liked a crybaby. They were nearly as bad as snitches. “I’m sorry.”

“Go to your desk so we can continue the lesson.”

She shuffled over to her desk, bumping into only two desks along the way this time, and sat down.

Her glasses crunched under her weight.

* * *

Touko had been eating lunch in a toilet cubicle, legs crossed over the lid so she could cradle her lunch in them, when a triad of girls barged into the girls’ bathroom to gossip and call her names. None had the nerve to say any of this to her face. Girl World apparently didn’t work that way; only in the not-as-secluded-as-they-thought-it-was bathroom did they dare voice their true opinions. Maybe the mirrors caused this: mirrors reflected, showing one a reversed image of themselves, so the girls who lied outside instead told the truth in here.

“She’s so weird,” said Voice One. Her bag thumped onto a bathroom countertop. “Is it just me or does Fukawa always look at people funny? Like she has to sneeze or something.”

They laughed. Touko bit down on her lower lip and seethed, imagining the girl distorting her face into a crude imitation of Touko’s.

Voice Two spoke quieter. “There’s something strange about her. She never talks much, does she? She just hides away and reads. I know she’s an author but... yeah.” Rustling: Touko guessed paper towels from the dispenser. “She’s always so rude to people too. I asked her if we had homework and she muttered and got mad when I asked her to say it again but properly.”

“It’s like she thinks we’re not worth her time,” said Voice Three. Water gushed out from a tap, making it harder to hear what she said next. “Though I’d be crabby too if I had to wear big, ugly glasses.”

“I know, right? It’s like... wear contacts or something. Seriously.” Voice One smacked her lips together and blew a kiss. “If I had to wear those glasses, I’d die. I’d drop dead and die.” Touko grimaced at the tautology. “She’s like a nerd stock character from an anime. Her glasses magnify her eyes and her eyes look like slugs. Gross. Then there’s her smell... It’s like hello, don’t you have a bath at home?”

More laughter.

“She reminds me of a mole,” said Voice Three.

Touko’s lunch splattered onto the floor. Her hands slammed the cubicle door open.

“Fukawa-san!” Voice Two said, cheeks colouring. Her two companions sobered, remorseful not because of what they said but because Touko heard them.

“I-If you must know...” Touko’s hands balled into tight fists. “I develop dry eyes easily! T-That’s why I can’t wear contacts. S-So there!”

She stormed out. The bathroom door closed on stunned silence.

* * *

Leon Kuwata was a creep; being the former ace fourth batter in Japan’s top ranking high school baseball team didn’t negate his creepiness. He swaggered into the cafeteria wearing sunglasses one morning, arms swinging and body bobbing in time with the tune he hummed.

Sunglasses. Inside. Nonsensical. Metal plates covered all the windows so he couldn’t use the excuse that sunlight drove him to wearing sunglasses.

“Yo.” Leon swung his leg over a chair and sat down. He grinned, twirling his spoon and tapping it against his plate as if playing a drum kit.

Seated at another table, Touko glowered at the back of his head.

The reason he wore them was because he was a creep. His plan dawned onto Touko within minutes. With sunglasses on, no one could see the direction of his gaze. He could have been focusing on Yasuhiro Hagakure’s story but he could have been gawking sidelong at Sayaka Maizono. He could even have been peering down Junko Enoshima’s cleavage.

How indecent.

Then it occurred to Touko that she could do the same. No, not ogle her classmates. Wear sunglasses. She packed prescription sunglasses; getting locked inside the school caused her to forget their existence temporarily. If she wore them, no one would see her eyes. Though no one had commented on her eyes yet, she knew everyone thought about how they resembled slugs and about how ugly they were. And they gossiped about it too, she bet, when she wasn’t there.

Touko refused to give them the satisfaction of pressuring her into hiding her eyes: she would do so of her own free will. Rather than wait for someone to let slip their opinion on her eyes, she would skip that step and wear sunglasses henceforth. After Leon stopped wearing them, of course. No one cared about her, no one paid any more attention than needed to her, but she didn’t want to come across as a mindless follower of trends. In time, people would forget that Leon ever wore sunglasses and no one would brand her a copycat.

Monobear executed Leon shortly afterwards and the sunglasses were soon put on. She didn’t like spending time with others so the rest of the class didn’t get much of a chance to see her wearing sunglasses, and those who saw didn’t always ask and those who asked were always snubbed.

With the conclusion of the first trial came the opening of the library. It didn’t contain many books of her preferred genre, and those it did have she had perused previously, but a library was a library and someone of interest frequented the area as much as she did.

Byakuya Togami.

The sunglasses, although they made her look ridiculous, nonetheless had its perks. They deterred people from talking to her, giving off the impression that she wished to be left alone, and they hid her eyes from view. No one could see what she was looking at and she took full advantage of this. Notebook. Knees. Byakuya Togami. Notebook. Ink smudge. Byakuya Togami. She could share his desk, something he objected to once but later merely rolled his eyes at, and he wouldn’t catch her peeking at him even if she sat directly opposite him.

It was nothing like what Leon did. Touko’s intentions were purer. Absolutely.

And it went unquestioned in the first two library sessions they had together.

But only in the first two.

“Why are you wearing those?” Byakuya asked.

Touko jerked her chin up, nearly ripping her pen through a page of her notebook. “H-Huh?”

Byakuya nodded his head once, simultaneously reading and talking to her. “Those sunglasses. They’re ridiculous. Why are you wearing them? It’s not bright in here... in fact, this room in particular is poorly lit. Even I’m using this lamp so I can read adequately.” He gestured toward the lamp beside his elbow. “Explain yourself.”

Her fingers twitched and her pen fell out of her slackened hold. “I... Togami-kun.” She gulped. “C-Can I ask you a question first?”

“You just did.” Byakuya glanced at her. “But I will allow another if it leads to you to explaining yourself, and I suppose it’s only fair that I answer something in return.” Oh, so she had him curious. She held back a smile. “What’s your question?”

“Why do you wear glasses?” Touko asked. “S-Surely, you’ve considered wearing contacts... or having surgery so you don’t need them anymore...”

“I like how they look on me. My eyesight isn’t that bad.” He set down his book and took off his glasses, angling his face in a way that gave her a clear view of it. “I can see you just fine without them.”

Touko’s insides seemed to flutter. Usually when people took off their glasses, there was something jarring about their appearance, but not with him. It just made him a different kind of handsome. A different, still good, handsome.

“There’s your answer.” Byakuya put them back on. “You can follow through on your promise now... Why are you wearing those? Did you break your usual pair or is it so I can’t easily tell if you’re spying on me?” He wrinkled his nose. “I don’t need to see your eyes to know that. You’re too obvious.”

Past experience taught Touko to never reveal secrets but Byakuya’s gaze pulled the words out of her mouth. “It’s because my eyes are ugly.” Common sense stopped her from blurting out the additional benefits.

“Ugly?” He raised his eyebrows. “Do you honestly think those sunglasses make you less conspicuous? Peh. Ugly indeed. Take them off.”

A noise popped out of her mouth that didn’t qualify as a suitable answer.

“I don’t like repeating myself,” Byakuya said. “I’ll be the judge of whether they’re ugly or not. You saw me without glasses so I should see you without yours.”

She trusted him to be honest. He never danced around emotions like other people did or lied to avoid hurt feelings. It was... refreshing. Nice.

Her hands shook as she took off her sunglasses.

Byakuya rose, leaning as far across the desk as he could. In a quieter voice, he demanded, “Come closer.”

Touko gripped the edge of the desk and craned her neck toward him. She could faintly discern his eyes, steel blue surrounded by long eyelashes, though the library’s poor lighting and her poor eyesight softened his features. Everything softened and without thinking, she puckered her lips.

“... They’re not ugly.” Byakuya sat down and picked up his book.

She felt her puckered lips crumble away in disappointment but smiled soon after. Not ugly. He said her eyes weren’t ugly.

“They’re not ugly,” he said again, “so you can wear your usual pair from now on.”

“They d-don’t remind you of slugs?” She put her sunglasses on so she could see again.

“Slugs?” His eyes flicked back up and he furrowed his brow. “No, they don’t. On the contrary, your eyes-” Byakuya turned his head away and held his book close to his face. “Your eyes are fine. Glasses suit you, that’s all. The ones you typically wear. Now stop bothering me and go to your room so you can exchange glasses.” He flapped his hand at her in a dismissive gesture. “Take as long as you need. The library could do with a break from your stink and so could I.”

Her chair scraped back. “Y-Yes. Right away...” Touko grabbed her notebook and hurried out of the library, giggling under her breath all the way to her room.

There, she dropped her notebook onto her bed and headed into her bathroom as that was where she had left her glasses a few days ago. She swapped the sunglasses for her usual pair and peered at the mirror above the sink.

Touko’s reflection stared back with a flushed face.

Maybe she wasn’t as ugly as she thought.

Maybe.

 


End file.
